Call it adrenaline, or stupidity, I’m not sure. But it hadn’t occurred to me yet where I’m at. I mean I knew I was headed here. But until this moment, I hadn’t allowed myself to consciously register where I am and what I’m doing. When I watch Michael take a swing at the building, that’s the moment it actually hits me. I’m back at Blade’s home. I’m at the Dwellers. I allow one quick glance, before the sound of Michael’s hammer hitting the building jars me. I jerk my head to watch him and realize that it’s the garden shed. My body feels flushed. A sick feeling washes over me and my body feels cold and clammy, while at the same time making me feel flushed. He’s tearing down the garden shed.

“Michael. What are you doing?” I ask, stupidly. I already know. I just…can’t believe it.

“Stay back, Hayden. I don’t want you near this place again,” his rough voice demands.

“Give me your hammer,” I demand.

“Fuck no. Woman you ain’t ever had a real man in your life before, but you need to start listening to me. Now back the hell away from here and let me finish this.”

“I want to hit it, Michael.”

“You’re pregnant,” he reminds me, but he doesn’t get it.

“I want to know that I helped, Michael. I need that for me and for Maggie,” I tell him, my body vibrating with that need.

“I’m doing this for you and for Maggie,” he responds.

“They almost killed her here, Michael,” I whisper, brokenly, knowing I don’t need to. He knows that and I don’t doubt that’s why he’s demolishing it now. What he doesn’t understand is I need to look back on this and know I helped. I need it for those days when I’m feeling weak, so that it can be like proof that I’m really not.

“Hayden—”

“They beat me, and I thought I was going to die. I said goodbye to Maggie here,” I tell him, my voice and body shaking. I wrap my arms around my stomach as if to protect her. “I want to help,” I whisper, and because I’m feeling desperate, I find myself begging. “Please, Michael. Let me help.”

“Here you go, darlin’,” the other guy that’s helping Michael says. I look up and he’s bringing me a glass soda bottle with a rag hanging out of it. There’s fluid in the bottom that I can only guess is gasoline.

“Damn it, Devil,” Beast growls.

“She can throw this and set the fucking shit on fire. It’s her right, the way I figure it,” he says, and I see compassion in his eyes.

His face is a little blurry, and it’s then I realize I’m crying. I use the back of my hand to wipe the tears away and stiffen up my spine. Today I am strong.

“Thank you,” I tell him.

“My pleasure, darlin’,” he says, with a smile.

“Can I do it now?” I ask Michael, taking the lighter that Devil hands me.

He huffs, but puts his hammer down and walks over to me. “If you get hurt throwing that, I’m going to kill everyone here and spend the rest of my life in jail,” he mutters, and I could almost smile.

“I’ll be careful.”

“Then do it and get it over with. Fuck, I never realized you were so stubborn,” he says.

“Welcome to my life,” Crusher jokes, as he and Dani come to stand beside us.

“Get it over with,” Michael says.

My hand shakes as I work the lighter. It doesn’t work on the first strike, and not even the second. Michael puts his hand over my shaking one. My eyes go to him.

The dark depths of his eyes are like liquid, reminding me of how he looked when he took my body. “You got this, Hayden. Take a breath, and just do it,” he says in his quiet, gruff voice.

Wetting my lips with my tongue, I do as he suggested and just breathe. I work the lighter, and when the flame shoots up, I put it at the end of the cloth. Once it catches, I take a giant step and throw it on the old building. It’s then I realize that Michael or Devil must have already doused the building with gas, because it explodes into flames. The heat of it is so hot that I start to take a step back. I don’t get the chance though, because Michael comes up behind me, wrapping both his arms around me, practically lifting me from the ground, as he pulls me away from the fire and back into his body.

“Can we do the same to the clubhouse,” I whisper, not sure he can hear me over the roar of the fire, and the crackling of wood. I underestimated Michael again though because he bends down, kisses the side of my face gently, before whispering in my ear.

“Already taken care of, Beauty,” he whispers for only me. “Watch.”

I’m not sure what he means until I see flames breaking away from the burning building. It’s like it follows a path and it’s a path that leads straight to the clubhouse and through the open doors. He made a trail of gas. He’s destroying the place of my nightmares. Those two thoughts ring in my head over and over, until they’re drowned out by the one other thought. A thought so huge, so amazing it robs me of breath.

He’s doing all of this for me. To avenge…me.